national
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- same old national (1,617)
Nats set the places for their own tea party
Written By: - Date published: 10:01 pm, May 18th, 2010 - 27 comments
The US Republican Party faces destruction at the hands of the Teabaggers, a reactionary movement based on ignorance and fear that the Republican leadership purposely created. National faces a similar risk. It cynically fed its members anti-climate change conspiracy theorist nonsense. Now the Nats have to govern but their knuckle-draggers are fighting back.
Hooten has “loose lips” syndrome as well
Written By: - Date published: 5:27 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 26 comments
It is always amusing listening to Matthew Hooten being a spinster on politics. But it was rather ironic for him to be in a conversation about John Key’s “loose lips” on NatRad this morning. He talked about this site posting conspiracy theories, but he was talking about a post at Tumeke and attributing to us.
“Loose lips” appear to be rife amongst the right-wing politicians and political commentators these days.
The New Zealand Herald: “Coalition is shakier by the day”
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 24 comments
The headline for the Herald’s editorial today says a lot about where the media are at with National at the moment. The Government and its actions have been savaged by a range of msm outlets this week in New Zealand – and internationally, which in turn became another source of yet more negative domestic coverage. This week […]
Shed some sunlight on a limp response
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 33 comments
David Farrar has finally made a comment on my “Hey Chubby…” post. It raises more questions than it answers. So I ask some of the obvious questions, and conclude that he has forsaken the principles of “free speech” that he so enthusiastically espoused only a few years ago.
International Year of Biodiversity but not in NZ
Written By: - Date published: 2:26 pm, May 15th, 2010 - 9 comments
The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. They have stated ‘It is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives.’ National has taken up the cause wholeheartedly in a variety of weird ways. They seem hell bent on enacting policies that will do nothing but destroy biodiversity in the name of the economic growth.
PM’s idiocy goes global
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, May 14th, 2010 - 64 comments
Hey thanks John, you’ve really helped put New Zealand in the international spotlight yet again. First it was your clown act on Letterman, more recently your cringe-worthy fawning over Biden and attempts to be seen as another Obama, your valiant pro-whaling pandering while leaving a New Zealand hero to languish in a Japanese jail, then your eagerness to mine […]
One more straw & the final one’s about to come
Written By: - Date published: 11:26 pm, May 11th, 2010 - 56 comments
You can’t mix oil and water. You can swirl things about for a while and it may appear you’ve mixed them but there is an essential difference that can’t be crossed. Likewise, there is an illusion that John Key, like some alchemist of old, has magically transcended fundamental political facts to make a National/Maori Party relationship work. But illusions can’t last forever.
Maxim scores own-goal, embarrasses National
Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, May 11th, 2010 - 15 comments
A recently released UMR poll commissioned by right-wing think tank the Maxim Institute shows strong support for the policies of the last Labour Government and little taste for the reforms National is trying to push through. It seems that if you ask Kiwis what kind of policies they want, the answer is ‘make mine a […]
The brains deficit
Written By: - Date published: 10:57 am, May 11th, 2010 - 4 comments
A headline on Newsroom caught my eye a couple of days back: “Deficit Falls Further”. Good news, so, well done the Nats? Turns out no, not so much…
Stab in the back for Tuhoe
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, May 11th, 2010 - 68 comments
Tuhoe had settled their compensation deal with the Crown. It was to go to Cabinet for sign off and the deal would be announced at a hui on Friday.But then John Key was confronted by the Nat’s pissed off hick base at the regional conference. What was he to do? The right thing by a people whose land was stolen from them? Or the thing that would best help his poll ratings? Guess.
Apologise
Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, May 10th, 2010 - 46 comments
Congratulations John on your latest speech. We especially like the line “Let me be clear: there is no room for separatism in New Zealand.” Very masterly, clear and unequivocal. I know you meant what you said and weren’t just dog-whistling to the racist red-necks in the audience who’re feeling spooked by us signing up to […]
English: do what we need to do to win
Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, May 8th, 2010 - 23 comments
Bill English is trying to assuage National Party member who are concerned that the Party is betraying its principles (ha!) and giving too much to the Maori Party saying “all those decisions are being made in the context of the longer-term view, reaching our objectives over the next four or five years” – winning a second term trumps principle. It’s about power for its own sake.
Bennett floundering over Saunders
Written By: - Date published: 5:34 pm, May 5th, 2010 - 42 comments
Apparently Paula Bennet is not aware quite who she has appointed to advise the Welfare Working Group…
Straw clutching on mining
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, May 4th, 2010 - 28 comments
In 2000, Labour gave permission for two companies to carry out traditional gold-panning for tourism purposes on Schedule 4 land. National seems to think this is a great scandal. As if zero-impact gold-panning in rivers is comparable to gold cast mines and massive tailings lakes. They’re really getting desperate, aren’t they?
Tipping point
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, May 4th, 2010 - 12 comments
We’ve passed “the honeymoon”, we’ve passed “the honeymoon is over”, and we’re now on to discussions of “the tipping point” for the National government. Not before time.
Not a time for mixed messages
Written By: - Date published: 1:34 pm, May 3rd, 2010 - 26 comments
This is not a time for mixed messages. Phil Goff is quoted today as saying: “They [the Government] have got to back down from both Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel”. No! Labour’s position, and the position of the biggest single protest march since 1938, is no mining in any Schedule 4 land! Don’t dilute the message…
So much for ‘ambitious for New Zealand’
Written By: - Date published: 12:35 pm, May 3rd, 2010 - 161 comments
A new report says that building the half a billion worth of new rail rolling stock for Auckland in New Zealand would boost GDP by $250 million, improve our current account deficit by over $100 million, add $70 million to government revenue, and create 1200 skilled jobs. But the Government just want the cheapest price for the rail cars, and that means going overseas.
Why the miners are so keen on public land
Written By: - Date published: 10:19 am, May 3rd, 2010 - 36 comments
Most of this country’s mineral wealth lies under private land, according to the government’s own figures. So, why are the Nats so determined to override public opinion and let their mining allies dig up our precious protected lands? Simple: mining on private land means paying a lease to the owner. Mining on public land is cheaper: we’re played like chumps for bigger profits.
Key under attack from Left & Right
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 pm, May 2nd, 2010 - 48 comments
50,000 New Zealanders march against the mining plans of this government. For many, the mining agenda is yet another black mark against this government that has done nothing positive about the issues that matter – jobs, wages, health, education, the environment. But the capitalist elite who so desperately wanted their party in power are getting pretty pissed off too.
Choices are becoming clear
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, April 29th, 2010 - 39 comments
The choices between Labour and National are becoming clearer by the day. Next election the public is going to be offered two very different futures for New Zealand. Not between Labour and a dissembling “Labour Lite”, but between Labour and the true National agenda exposed.
Govt treat Maori kids as 2nd class citizens
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 29th, 2010 - 7 comments
Last week, the Maori Party endlessly praised National for the meaningless DRIP. Yesterday, we got deathly silence as Trevor Mallard revealed that the Government is giving whare kura schools only $50,000 in base operating funding. Mainstream schools get $130,000. The Government is treating kids at Maori immersion schools as second-class citizens and the Maori Party is OK with it.
Nats plan to subsidise greenhouse polluters
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, April 29th, 2010 - 21 comments
National is predictably planning to put the cost of polluters’ actions on to the rest of us by canning the major parts of the ETS. This stupid game of pass the buck is played out all over the world – polluters refuse to accept their responsibilities, governments refuse to act – as more greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, locking us in to economic and ecological devastation.
Labour to restore democracy in Canterbury
Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, April 28th, 2010 - 78 comments
Last month, the Government abolished the democratically-elected Canterbury Regional Council known as Environment Canterbury. Not only were the current elected officials booted out, Cantabarians were denied their right to elect the next council in the upcoming local body elections. Now, Labour has pledged to restore democracy to Canterbury.
Pollyanna Finlayson ignores reality
Written By: - Date published: 10:33 am, April 26th, 2010 - 21 comments
The other day, Chris Finlayson described himself as a Pollyanna – it’s an American term (of derision) for someone who sees everything as positive, ignoring unhappy realities. Finlayson is all bouncy and optimistic, selling his ‘no-one owns it’ ‘solution’ to the F&S issue. But I have not heard a single Maori leader who agrees with his offer or anything like it.
DRIP-fed
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, April 23rd, 2010 - 51 comments
Anyone who still thinks the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is going to have any real world effect in New Zealand needs their head read. The first thing that a court will do when someone cites the DRIP as authoritative is check what the Government said about its intention to be bound by it. It will find statement after statement that the Government sees it as purely symbolic.
Commercial whaling plan to be announced
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 23rd, 2010 - 11 comments
A deal to re-introduce commercial whaling is about to be announced. Anti-whaling groups are organising a snap protest at Parliament, today at 12. Be there. Japan has agreed to lower its ‘quotas’. But since it never kills its full quotas this will not save a single whale. Key will proclaim himself saviour of the whales. The reality is he is legitimising the slaughter and saving nothing.
RNZ reveals ACC privatisation agenda
Written By: - Date published: 9:03 am, April 23rd, 2010 - 71 comments
National’s hysteria around ACC last year was focused on creating an air of crisis. Now they’re going to ‘do something’. That something is privatisation of ACC. It won’t work, it won’t save money. The costs of injuries will still exist. Privatisation will put more of that cost on the injured. Added ligation and profits will mean worse cover for more cost.
English & Key cost us another $18mil
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, April 22nd, 2010 - 35 comments
The other week Vernon Small said that canceling the Cullen Fund contributions was “a dumb, short-sighted decision that has cost the fund heaps in the long run“. Hell, don’t worry about the long run just yet, Vernon, it’s been only 8 months. And the losses are accelerating. Last month the Nats cost us a further $18 million – that’s basically a million a work day.
More on Crosby-Textor, mining, and the Nats
Written By: - Date published: 6:53 am, April 22nd, 2010 - 18 comments
We all know that long before John Key got into the gold and uranium mining industry, Crosby Textor Chairman, Robert J Champion de Crespigny was pushing the mining industry’s cause in New Zealand. So, who is this CT man who has been called Australia’s ‘Mr Gold’, a “mining magnateâ€, a “resource-sector heavyweight†and “a legendâ€?
A declaration of contempt
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, April 21st, 2010 - 35 comments
As John Key smiled and assured his National Party constituents that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is aspirational, symbolic and legally non-binding, I started to feel a little incredulous. Key plainly has no intention of effecting any of the aspirations contained in the Declaration: he has categorically said as much. So where, […]
Indigenous Declaration part of Nats’ clever game
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, April 20th, 2010 - 69 comments
Pita Sharples, like Labour, thinks the Declaration of Indigenous Rights matters. John Key sees a meaningless piece of paper, the signing of which costs him nothing. This, along with giving Tariana Turei Whanau Ora, is part of National’s clever manipulation of the Maori Party. The Maori Party leadership is co-opted, ready to roll over on the real issue- the foreshore and seabed.
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